Author
Topic: Philip Glass (Read 29120 times)

Henk

Saw he has no thread yet, only threads about particular works of him. I love the cd's released on Naxos, Symphony 2,3 and The Light / Heroes Sympony, but I'm less impressed by some his more older/well-known works.

I'm curious about recently released cd's. These are:

The sound samples sound very well.Anybody some recommendations?

« Last Edit: June 01, 2008, 11:29:15 AM by Henk »

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M forever

Looks very interesting. I played in the US premiere of Glass' cello concerto in San Diego last year. Wendy Sutter was the soloist and Glass came to the final rehearsals and the performances. There is a film about that on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IxWK29i-UI with interviews with Glass, Sutter and our conductor Stephen Schick and the complete performance.

The only Glass I've found myself really enjoying is the early-ish work Another Look At Harmony, Part 4 (which IIRC now has two recorded performances). Some of his later stuff can be "okay" as easy listening, but not interesting, and some of his early stuff repeats too much to maintain interest, but ALAH4 is both very minimal (and long - 50 to 60 mins) but this is countered by its amazing shifting choral textures, and when in the right mood I find it impossible to interrupt a listen of this piece.

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Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

Mozart

I heard bits of that work on the radio, ALAH4, and it was almost like brainwash. It was silly but I sat there without a thought and the music just kept going and going with its weirdness...I want to hear it again

Glass' Violin Concerto is very good, I like it a lot (Takuo Yuasa/Naxos).

Glass also made interesting collaboration with Mark Moore (one of the best DJs in the world and the "godfather" of British acid house scene) in late 80's. That's how I was introduced to this composer in the first place, long before I got into classical music.

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Spatial distortion is a serious problem deteriorating headphone listening. Crossfeeders reduce spatial distortion and make the sound more natural and less tiresome in headphone listening.

greg

Looks very interesting. I played in the US premiere of Glass' cello concerto in San Diego last year. Wendy Sutter was the soloist and Glass came to the final rehearsals and the performances. There is a film about that on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IxWK29i-UI with interviews with Glass, Sutter and our conductor Stephen Schick and the complete performance.

wow, nice to listen to that one!i'm trying to find M here, except for now i can only find a faraway shot that looks like him.... maybe they'll zoom in? (in the middle of it right now)

My favorite Glassian moment is the slow movement of Symphony No 3. Has an almost hypnotic effect on me; in the past it has convinced me that maybe Pachelbel's Kanon would have been cooler if Philip Glass had written it.

No. M is not in that shot. The first desk was further over to the right (or rather, the front of the stage) and when they shot the bass section, most of the time they selected that angle with the other three desks, maybe they thought it looked more "impressive" because there were more players in the shot, or maybe because they felt me and my stand partner were not beautiful enough Well, she is a quite a good looking lady, I guess, so it must just have been me they didn't want to film Generally, the UCSD TV guys (probably students from some "media" classes) and whoever directed and edited this don't really seem to have a clear idea of how to film an orchestra. They almost exclusively cut to the bass section when we played slow, quiet stuff. But there is also some real "action" stuff in there which of course looks much more interesting, especially when it comes to the basses where dynamic music directly translates into dynamic movement (or rather, the other way around...).At the beginning of the second movement, we had the main theme, but they filmed the horns which had just accompanying figures You can't really hear that so well on youtube either, but in the DVD I have, you can actually hear us much better (and, of course, not just us basses, the whole orchestra sounds much better than here on youtube).But you aren't missing much visually here. M looked like shit that weekend, seriously. I had been through 3 straight months of very brutal non-stop stress at work, lots of difficult and complicated projects which my company really fucked up, bad planning, bad scheduling, lots of mistakes, a lot of stupid shit and nerve terror. So the night before the concert, or rather in the early morning hours, after weeks of battling with myself, I had emailed them my notice which meant not just giving up that particular job, it also meant that I would have to pack my stuff and go back to Europe since my work visa was tied to that job. It also meant giving up everything I had built up there over 5 years, friends, and the La Jolla Symphony which was "just" a hobby for me but had still become important for me. Especially since I had spent 4 years training the bass section and they had very drastically improved and that concert was the first with our new music director Stephen Schick who is very cool and very competent, and with him, the future looks very bright for this orchestra...All that was really hard to give up - but I have very strong principles, so I didn't have a choice...from my point of view So this concert turned into my farewell concert and watching the video actually makes me really sad

Anyway, there are a few places in which I am in the frame, from a merciful distance , like around 36:00:

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greg

No. M is not in that shot. The first desk was further over to the right (or rather, the front of the stage) and when they shot the bass section, most of the time they selected that angle with the other three desks, maybe they thought it looked more "impressive" because there were more players in the shot, or maybe because they felt me and my stand partner were not beautiful enough Well, she is a quite a good looking lady, I guess, so it must just have been me they didn't want to film maybe they just didn't know what they were doing?

Generally, the UCSD TV guys (probably students from some "media" classes) and whoever directed and edited this don't really seem to have a clear idea of how to film an orchestra. They almost exclusively cut to the bass section when we played slow, quiet stuff. But there is also some real "action" stuff in there which of course looks much more interesting, especially when it comes to the basses where dynamic music directly translates into dynamic movement (or rather, the other way around...).what i've always wondered is how they pull off stuff like the snare drum shot.... how they get so close! Is it just a simple zoom in from a camera directly above? I guess that's what it would be, the only thing i can think of.....

At the beginning of the second movement, we had the main theme, but they filmed the horns which had just accompanying figures You can't really hear that so well on youtube either, but in the DVD I have, you can actually hear us much better (and, of course, not just us basses, the whole orchestra sounds much better than here on youtube).yeah, i noticed the sound quality wasn't great on this video..... especially the beginning, it sounded like a wall of mud..... i'm almost straining to hear the notes. I think part of it may have to do with the actual writing for your bass section. It almost sounds like bass lines too close together, though i'd have to see the score.....

But you aren't missing much visually here. M looked like shit that weekend, seriously. I had been through 3 straight months of very brutal non-stop stress at work, lots of difficult and complicated projects which my company really fucked up, bad planning, bad scheduling, lots of mistakes, a lot of stupid shit and nerve terror. So the night before the concert, or rather in the early morning hours, after weeks of battling with myself, I had emailed them my notice which meant not just giving up that particular job, it also meant that I would have to pack my stuff and go back to Europe since my work visa was tied to that job. It also meant giving up everything I had built up there over 5 years, friends, and the La Jolla Symphony which was "just" a hobby for me but had still become important for me. Especially since I had spent 4 years training the bass section and they had very drastically improved and that concert was the first with our new music director Stephen Schick who is very cool and very competent, and with him, the future looks very bright for this orchestra...All that was really hard to give up - but I have very strong principles, so I didn't have a choice...from my point of view So this concert turned into my farewell concert and watching the video actually makes me really sad so...... did you go back to Europe or are you going back? this was from 2/2008, it says.....could you at least get in an orchestra in Europe? what was the other job you had?

Anyway, there are a few places in which I am in the frame, from a merciful distance , like around 36:00:

The last one was taken in August 3 years ago in Seattle, during the NorthWest Mahler Festival. We played Mahler 2. Two other members of the LJS were there, too, my standpartner Chris (4th from left) and Bill (2nd from right) who had asked us to come. He had lived in Seattle before moving to Southern California so he had participated in that festival for many years. Next year, the LJS will also play Mahler 2 - we already talked about me coming over and reinforcing them for that. I hope that will work out scheduling wise.